


and all the miles in between

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 00:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18376946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: “love note?” fp asks.“yeah,” says tom, refolding the letter and chasing the edge of the torn paper with his index finger, around and around. “need to get over her by the time the bus stops.”or:fp jones and tom keller sit together on the bus to basic training after graduation.





	and all the miles in between

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [leave you when the summer comes along](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16229093) by [bewareoftrips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareoftrips/pseuds/bewareoftrips). 



> im just posting stuff willy nilly from my google docs dont look at me
> 
> title from what else? bobby jean

“you know,” says tom keller as the bus picks up speed, the treeline blurring into a paintbrush streak and hot air tickling the tops of their heads through the window, “there’s a chance—good chance—we’ll never see combat.”

the bus shudders over the unpaved road, hits the first of many potholes and throws up a slurry of gravel under its tires as they bounce in their seats. “i know that” says fp, because tom’s tone had implied he didn’t. he sneaks a glance at the two of them in the mirror above the driver, two fresh-faced, frightened high school graduates. you still could have smeared the ink on his diploma. fred had it now – was keeping it safe for him with his own.  

there it was, the thing he didn’t want to think about.

fred.

tom’s mouth is open like he had had something to say and thought better of it – he closes it with a disciplined click of his teeth and turns his attention to a square of stationary in his hand, unfolding it and cradling it in a way that told fp he had the contents memorized.

“love note?” fp asks.   

“yeah,” says tom, refolding the letter and chasing the edge of the torn paper with his index finger, around and around. “need to get over her by the time the bus stops.” 

“or you could miss her.”

it’s the wrong thing to say – tom’s jaw tightens like a wire. “you think i won't miss her? do you think i don’t miss her? it’s been an hour, i miss her. i miss her like –you wouldn’t miss food this much if you were starving.” his hands are shaking very subtly, the paper fluttering without sound. “that’s how much i miss her.”

“okay,” says fp, thinking: i _miss him too,_ i _miss him like if the sun went away._ i _miss him the way_ god _must have missed light to make it first._

“if there was a world where i could be with her – if there was even a _ghost_ of a chance, if this bus stopped somewhere and i could get off and fall into her arms and it would _last_ – i’d do it.” tom sucks in a breath through his teeth. “but i can’t.” 

fp nods and looks at his shoes.

“it was love, man,” says tom quietly. “i know, look at me, what do i know about love. but it was love.”

 _so was mine_ , thinks fp.

“i can still see her,” tom says, and his voice shivers in the way a new cadet’s shouldn’t, in a way he’ll have to shake before the bus stops. “you know? i close my eyes and i see her – her hair, her skin, the way she smiled - and i think if i have this in my head during training i’ll go crazy. i think, i’ll put her on a shelf in my brain and let it go blurry and soft and nice, like a picture. but the way i see her right now – man, if you could see that you wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

fp swallows and nods, spurred to speak but keeping his tone low: 

“fred hated this. war. the word _invasion_ gives him hives. his mom always said if he’d been born earlier he’d have been a good little revolutionary at the vietnam war protests. he used to scream at me about enlisting. we used to fight and fight and fight and i’d hate it. but tom, if i could have him right here telling me again what a piss-poor crock of shit the us army is, i’d sell my soul.” 

he’d never come out to anyone before, this amounted to as much. he’s grateful when tom only nods, when the understanding passes between them and nothing more needs to be said.

“it’ll get easier,” says tom and tears his letter in two, and though fp knows he has it memorized it doesn’t hurt any less, the sound feels like a hacksaw ripping through his gut. “moving on. for both of us.”

it had been his intention, he’d given fred as much blessing, those same words: move on, recover, forget it, set it down, let go. but how? there was no shaking something that had burrowed so deeply into you, that gripped you the way fred gripped his heart. the smell of him, the touch of him, the last few hours they were together, the sky like ink outside the window and the bedsheets smelling like lilacs. the diamond of skin at his temple where fp had kissed him goodbye. all seared into his memory like a brand. fred. his fred. 

“and like i said,” says tom, drops his note out the window in a flurry of paper snow, his jaw too tight again, close to breaking – “we’ll come back.”

of course he’d come back. he’d watched fred drive away and he’d known in his bones he was coming back. the rest of his life was here. the very sun was here. he’d known from the day he met fred -  _this boy is the rest of my life._

“do you?”

fp hadn’t been listening. “do i what?

“do you want to come back?”

something slots into place – tom’s hesitation. “that’s why you think i joined? because i have a death wish?”

"i’ve known you for years, fp. i’ve seen you play football. i’ve seen you pick fights. and the way you get inside your head sometimes… yeah, i think you have a death wish. i think you could use a shrink. no offence.”

“no offence,” fp echoes bizarrely.

“i'm glad i was wrong,” tom says, hesitating again.

fp only looks at his hands. “i promised him i wouldn’t get hurt.”

silence stretches between them, as endless as the fields outside the bus window. corn, fp thinks, or wheat. 

"i hope you keep that promise," says tom after a long while, long enough that fp had almost forgotten about it.

“why?”

"dunno. but i’d like to be somewhere five years from now and know you’re still in the world.”

“yeah,” says fp softly, and traces his own note through the pocket of his jeans. “i’d like that too.”  


End file.
